


The Truth That Gets Lost

by Caroly214



Series: Whipping Boy [2]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Howard Loves Tony, Howard Stark Has A Heart, Howard Stark Needs a Hug, Howard Stark's C+ Parenting, Tony Stark Angst, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 00:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8266580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caroly214/pseuds/Caroly214
Summary: Howard knows he’s too hard on Tony.  But it’s the only way he can think of to stop Tony from making the same mistakes his father did.This is a companion piece to my post-CACW fic Whipping Boy, specifically Chapter 5.  You do not actually have to read Whipping Boy to understand this.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from “Close to Home” by Vienna Teng. 
> 
> If you hate Howard Stark, this is probably not the fic for you. It seems to be fanon that he’s a horrible person and a worse father - being physically or emotionally abusive, taking Tony’s toys away, etc., etc. I know everyone is entitled to their own headcanon, but I don’t think there is much evidence in the MCU to support that view of Howard (I’m a lawyer; I look for evidence). I’m by no means saying Howard was father of the year, because he wasn’t. But he also isn’t evil incarnate; he’s just a man, as flawed as every other man. And he’s a man who’s very similar to his son, so for me, to love Tony means I also have to love Howard, while recognizing that both have flaws. Hopefully, this might demonstrate that Howard isn’t that bad (and maybe, if I have time, I’ll re-work the meta I stated a long time ago - before it was Jossed) to explain why I don’t think he’s that bad).
> 
> Disclaimer: I am not actually a parent, but I am a big sister, being 11 and 13 years older than my 2 youngest siblings. I’m also the doting spinster aunt to my niece and nephew. So I have had the experience of watching them make the same mistakes I did when I was younger; it’s not fun. And I ran a lot of this past my mother, so I do have an actual parent’s input.

With Tony’s comment about toga parties ringing in his ears, Howard went to get his and Maria’s bags. Jarvis was, of course, waiting for him, an expectant expression on his face.

Howard sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Yes, I know. I screwed up again. I don’t have time to fix it now because I have to get to Washington.” He didn’t say why because Jarvis knew (Although Jarvis had never officially been an agent of anything, Howard and Peggy had decided long ago that Jarvis was going to end up helping them, so they should just give him security clearance to make life easier.)

“I’ll talk to him when we get back,” he said. At Jarvis’ raised eyebrow radiating disapproval, Howard continued, “An actual talk, not a lecture. I promise,” he finished weakly, because he’d made that promise before but failed. He’d start the conversation with good intentions and a plan to keep things from escalating out of control, but it never worked. He tried, but it was never good enough.

A hand on his shoulder pulled him out of his thoughts. He looked up at the man who probably knew him better than his wife did and, surprisingly, saw sympathy in his old friend’s eyes.

“See that you do. Ana and I will take care of him until you return,” Jarvis said in his customary crisp tones.

Howard smirked ruefully at that. “I know you will; you always do.” Jarvis and Ana were more a de facto uncle and aunt than servants to Tony, though Jarvis, especially, was always careful of ‘propriety’ and was never too familiar with Tony. Howard suspected Jarvis kept that layer of distance for Howard’s sake, since it was obvious Jarvis would be a better father than Howard could ever hope to be. Regardless, Howard trusted both of them with his son.

Stepping back, he nodded at Jarvis and picked up the bags, but instead of looking ahead to the flight to Washington and then to Bermuda for a long-overdue treat for his wife, his thoughts stayed stuck on his failing relationship with his son.

He could admit to himself that he missed how it was when Tony was a baby and small child, when Tony looked up at him with unconditional love. Howard had never really known that before; he'd barely known his own parents, having been taken away and sent to boarding school once the authorities realized how smart Howard was. The few times Howard visited his parents had been…awkward, to say the least, with his father resenting the son who was being handed a better chance on a silver platter, while his father made a pittance selling fruit and his mother toiled away in a shirtwaist dress factory.

When he was little, Tony had always been happy to see him. Howard wasn’t good with adults and even worse with children, but with Tony, that hadn’t mattered. Howard had watched with fascination as this tiny person learned to do all the things adults took for granted. And Tony hadn’t expected anything from his father but love - something Howard had felt so fiercely the intensity took him aback, even if he struggled to show it. During those early years, Howard - along with Peggy, Dum Dum, and the other SSR veterans - regaled Tony with bedtime stories about Steve. For a while, Tony had been so impressed because his Dad had been friends with Captain America.

As Tony grew older and his brilliance began to show, however, things changed. Tony had loved to learn - but he had also loved to get into things he shouldn’t, like Howard’s workshop. After one too many close calls of Tony nearly being injured, Howard became paranoid and tried to keep Tony away from his work, which drove the first wedge between them. As Tony - ever precocious - approached his pre-teen years, his attitude began to change. He didn’t like learning as much because he was bored at school. Howard and Maria had searched for a school that could keep up with their brilliant son, and in the end, they did what had worked for Howard: they sent Tony to boarding school, hoping it would work out as well for Tony as it had for his father.

It didn’t. Tony grew angrier and angrier and every conversation became an argument. Sometimes, Howard felt helpless and just wanted his little boy back, to go back to the time when the worst that would happen was a small tumble and when a story about Captain America would make Tony look up at his father with awe. The problem was that Tony was growing up and he didn’t need his parents as much anymore, and Howard was handling it badly.

And as Tony became a young man, he became a carbon copy of his father, making all of the mistakes Howard now regretted making. Maria kept telling him he had to let Tony make his own mistakes, that Tony had to learn for himself. But Howard couldn’t be satisfied with that. For decades, he’d been trying to make the world a better place. For much of that time, he had no specific reason to make things better, but then he had a son and everything changed. He needed to make the world better for Tony, to give him a worthy inheritance. Everything he did after Tony’s birth, both at Stark Industries and SHIELD, he had done with that goal in mind. But all his efforts would be for naught if Tony kept doing stupid things and making the wrong choices.

It was bitter pill for Howard to swallow: Tony was too like his father. It was painful watching Tony making the same mistakes Howard had - the same mistakes Howard now regretted. If he could go back and smack some sense into his younger self, he would. But he couldn’t. The best he could do was to try to stop Tony from following so closely in his father’s footsteps. He didn’t want Tony to have to face the scorn of friends and enemies alike, to flinch when he looked in the mirror or thought about his past, and to spend hours trying to figure out why he had been so stupid. What was the point of being Tony’s father if he couldn’t protect his son from being his own worst enemy? Why couldn’t he use the things he had learned over the years to stop his son from making the same mistakes his father had?

There were times, usually when he was alone in his workshop with a bottle of scotch in the middle of the night, unable to sleep because of the nightmares, that he had to admit to himself that he was a terrible role model for his son. He worked too much and kept too many secrets, even from those closest to him. He was reserved and distant, a lifetime of being in the spotlight teaching him the necessity of using masks to hide his true feelings. And he was awkward in most social situations where he wasn’t dazzling everyone with his brilliance or putting on a show. Even his closest friends couldn’t stand him half the time and often believed the worst of him.

Maybe that was one of the reasons he missed Steve as much as he did. They hadn’t been close, no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise. But Steve had never accused him of caring only about money, as Peggy had. Steve had never criticized his playboy ways, as Peggy and many of his other friends and colleagues had. Steve had never thought Howard wasn’t a good man. Of course, the real reason for that was probably because they just hadn’t spent much time around one another, but the great thing about nostalgia was that you could overlook the flaws, remembering only the good times. Even without the rose-colored glasses, however, his friendship with Steve was one of the few things in his life that didn’t have a dark undercurrent. And Steve had been a good man, something Howard had been trying to be all his life with varying success. That as good a man as Steve had been his friend meant that there had to be something good about Howard.

And so if he talked about Steve too much, what was the harm? Remembering Steve was a lot easier to bear than remembering other things from the war, like Finrow, when he was accused of treason, and the human cost of far too many of his inventions. And those who thought badly of Howard could always use the reminder that he had been Captain America’s friend. It never hurt to remind himself of Steve’s good qualities, either, to keep in mind the ideal he was striving for.

Given the choice between offering himself as a role model for his son, or offering Steve, the choice was clear: Steve was a far better role model. But like many of the good things Howard tried to do, that had backfired, causing his son to resent not only Howard, but also Steve. The problem was that Howard had no idea how to relate to his son absent an intermediary.

So instead, much to Howard’s regret, Tony was following his father’s example and proving that he was his father’s son through and through. He partied, he drank too much, he was rude, and he was a womanizer. Add failing his friends and having his inventions used by others to hurt innocent people and he’d be a mirror image of Howard. And Howard was powerless to stop it. Everything he did to try to convince Tony that was not the right path only pushed Tony more firmly onto it.

He knew he was being hard on Tony, but he was running out of time. It had taken him so long to find the right woman - who was not only brilliant and amazing in her own right, but who also was able to handle Howard even on his worst days - that he’d been well into middle age when Tony was born. He wanted to see his son grown up and successful, to see him as the amazing man Tony would be as soon as he pulled his head out of his ass. But if he continued to closely follow in Howard’s footsteps, it could be decades before Tony grew up. Howard was getting old and he didn’t have time to wait for Tony to wake up on his own; so he pushed. And he kept pushing even though it wasn’t working because he was running out of time and he didn’t know what else to do. Maria kept reassuring him that they’d get along better once Tony was grown up and they were on more equal footing, so Howard tried to put his faith in that, hoping against hope that he’d live long enough for it to come true.

That was the problem with people: they were flawed. Howard could make a machine to do nearly anything, and do it perfectly, but he couldn’t make his son make the right choices. And he couldn’t figure out how to be a better father. 

So, yes: he was too hard on his son. But the world would be harder on him if he continued his reckless ways. Howard just wished there was a way he could protect his son from finding out the hard way just how harsh the world could be. If he had just a little more time, maybe he could find a way to get through to Tony.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: online transcripts (prior to CA:CW being released on DVD, etc.), said that Tony was having a “toker party.” I was pretty sure it was actually “toga party” and I have confirmed that’s what he actually said (yay for subtitles).
> 
> Also, I’ve seen a lot of criticism of Howard (and Maria, but usually just Howard) for planning on leaving Tony alone during the holidays. But they weren’t going to leave him alone. Looking at all of the newspaper articles about Howard and Maria Stark’s deaths, in Iron Man and Winter Solider, it seems they died on Thursday, December 16th (the articles are dated Friday, December 17th). In Civil War, Howard tells Tony not to burn the house down by Monday, which Tony says he’ll take into account when planning his toga party. This heavily implies that Howard and Maria intended to return on Monday, December 20th. (I told you I was a lawyer who looked at the evidence). So basically, they were taking a long weekend and would have been back several days before Christmas. 
> 
> Last, I’ve also seen criticism about Howard and Tony’s interaction, but it seemed like fairly typical teenager/parent interaction (I say this from the lofty age of 36). I checked with my parents and they agreed. Maybe it’s because my family’s first language is sarcasm, but I didn’t think it was that bad.


End file.
